Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount HaldaneKT, OM, PC, KC, FRS, FBA, FSA (/ˈhɔːldeɪn/; 30 July 1856 – 19 August 1928), was an influential British Liberal Imperialist and later Labour politician, lawyer and philosopher. He was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912 during which time the "Haldane Reforms" were implemented. Raised to the peerage as Viscount Haldane in 1911, he was Lord Chancellor between 1912 and 1915, when he was forced to resign because of his supposed and unproven German sympathies. He later joined the Labour Party and once again served as Lord Chancellor in 1924 in the first ever Labour administration. Apart from his legal and political careers, Haldane was also an influential writer on philosophy, in recognition of which he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1914.

After studying law in London, he was called to the Bar, Lincoln's Inn, in 1879,[1] and became a successful lawyer. He was taken on at 5 New Square Chambers by Lord Davey in 1882 as the junior. Haldane's practice was a specialism in conveyancing; a particular skill for pleadings at appeal and tribunal cases, bringing cases to the privy council and house of Lords. By 1890 he had made silk, a Queen's Counsel.[2] By 1905 he was earning £20,000 per annum (just over £1.6m at 2010 prices[3]) at the Bar.[4] He joined the elite at Lincoln's Inn being made a bencher in 1893. Amongst his early friends was Edmund Gosse, the scholarly librarian at the inn's law library, whose help made Haldane well known for researching casework. Haldane gained a reputation for being fully prepared in court and parliament briefs.

Haldane was deep thinker, an unusual breed: a philosopher-politician. During his stay at Göttingen he expanded an interest in the German philosophers, Schopenauer and Hegel. He had refused a place at Balliol, but in nodding respect for the Master and philosopher, T H Green, he dedicated his Schopenauer translation The World as Will and Idea which he carried through with a friend, Peter Hume Brown, the Scottish historian.

A cousin, the Whig politician Lord Camperdown encouraged the young barrister into standing as a Liberal at the General Election of 1880. The 80's Club was the first of many liberal political circles, acting for discussion and support of philosophical policy forum. The following year he was introduced to H. H. Asquith, and they soon became firm friends at the Blue Post Public house on Cork street. They were founders of the Albert Grey committee, named after Earl Grey, regularly discussing burning social issues, such as education.

The philosopher-politician wrote several articles for the advanced and progressive Contemporary Review. In October 1888, "The Liberal Creed" was published summarising his belief in the direction of New Liberalism. The added dimension of time in "The Eight Hours Question" signalled Haldane's deterministic move towards the Left in October 1893. Haldane's hard working and puritanical character informed his own decision to remain a bachelor. In 1888, he courted Emma Valentine Ferguson, sister of his Liberal party friend, Ronald Munro-Ferguson; they were never married, but Haldane became firmly ensconced in the Imperialist wing of Liberalism, led by Sir Edward Grey.

At the 1892 General Election, he received a shock, when nearly defeated by Conservative Master of Polwarth, Beatrice Webb, the socialist who was a close intimate, remarked on how alone Haldane was in the world.[6] Hobhouse may have been a Liberal family, but Haldane added the preface to L T Hobhouse's The Labour Movement in 1893. Being celibate raised lampooning from critics, including Ferguson's: Betsy came out in 1892, and was followed by Music Hath charms, 1894. Sadly Emma Ferguson died insane in 1897. He had pathos in his personality, remarked Webb, a successful lawyer tinged with socialism.[7]

Focusing on his writings, Haldane was passed over for political office, being the only one of his group left outside in the wilderness. Haldane remained an ally of Asquith and Sir Edward Grey on the Liberal Imperialist wing of the party, followers of Lord Rosebery rather than of Sir William Harcourt. The budget of July 1894, Haldane played a part in designing the Death Duties bill, that would change the social map of Britain. Rosebery admired Haldane's intellect: and the Scotsman urged upon his friend, whom he had known since 1886, an assault on Tory power in the Lords in 1894.[8] A young and brilliant lawyer, Haldane joined friends at the Articles Club, including Asquith and Grey. Haldane was disappointed having failed to secure the post of Solicitor-general in October 1894. At the time, Asquith wryly remarked A very wrong decision come to upon inadequate grounds.[9] Haldane was sounded out of the Speakership by Rosebery, but refused it, declaring it to be a political death. The post went eventually to W Gully in 1895.

At a meeting with Beatrice Webb, the Fabian socialist, Haldane told her he was disconsolate at the condition of the Liberal party. Rot has set in there is no hope now but to be beaten and then reconstruct a new party[10] The leaders of the party were exasperated: Although Asquith, Grey and I, wrote Haldane, stuck by him ...we never knew when he would retire and leave us in the lurch. Rosebery lacked planning and direction, in other words.[11] When Rosebery offered the Speakership, he refused it that March.[12] But on 11 October 1896 he wrote Rosebery that he was the leader of a revolution in our party.[13]

After the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour fell in December 1905 there was some speculation that Asquith and his allies Haldane and Sir Edward Grey would refuse to serve unless Campbell-Bannerman accepted a peerage, which would have left Asquith as the real leader in the House of Commons. However, the plot (called "The Relugas Compact" after Grey's Scottish lodge where the men met) collapsed when Asquith agreed to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Campbell-Bannerman.[15]One longs for Rosebery had he been coming in to his right place at the head of affairs, we could have gone anywhere with confidence. But it seems now as if this were not to be and we have to do the only thing we can do, which is to resolutely follow a plan of concerted action. The Liberal Party in crisis, had rejected Rosebery with Home Rule firmly on the agenda.[16]

The moderate Relugas Compact collapsed: playing the ball into Rosebery's court. On 13 December 1905, Haldane was appointed Secretary of State for War, although he may have been offered the jobs of Attorney-General and Home Secretary.[4] (Grey became Foreign Secretary).[17] The party won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election. Grey and Rosebery were more reluctant to serve in a cabinet accepting Home Rule in principle. However unity amongst the Liberals guaranteed the biggest electoral majority in the party's history in the general election.[18]

As early as January 1906 Haldane was persuaded by fellow Liberal Imperialist Edward Grey to begin planning for a Continental war in support of the French against the Germans. However, Haldane's first estimates reduced the Army by 16,600 men and reduced expenditure by £2.6m to £28 million, as the Liberals had been elected on a platform of retrenchment.[19] By 1914 Britain spent 3.4% of national income on defence, little more in absolute terms than Austria-Hungary's 6.1%. Army expenditure was determined according to a formula devised by the Esher Committee. In 1900, during the Boer War, army expenditure was £86.8m, by 1910 (a low point, after four years of cuts under the Liberals) it had dropped to £27.6m and by 1914 it had risen back to £29.4m. In March 1914 effective expenditure on the Army, after allowing for increased pensions and £1m set aside for military aviation, was still less than in 1907-8, and £2m less than in 1905-6 (despite a 20% rise in prices since then).[19]

Despite these budgetary constraints, Haldane implemented a wide-ranging set of reforms of the Army, aimed at preparing the army for an Imperial war but with the more likely (and secret) task of a European war. The main element of this was the establishment of the British Expeditionary Force of six infantry divisions and one cavalry division.[20] The Official Historian Brigadier Edmonds later wrote that "in every respect the Expeditionary Force of 1914 was incomparably the best trained, best organised and best equipped British Army ever to leave these shores"[21]

Haldane set up the Imperial General Staff. Before Haldane there was only the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, which only met in emergencies, and the Colonial Defence Committee. Esher had recommended the setting up of an Army Council and the abolition of the post of Commander-in-Chief, but few of his recommendations had been implemented before the change of government in December 1905.[22] Haldane's reforms also created the Territorial Force of 14 divisions (the original plan was for 28) and 14 mounted Yeomanry brigades at home,[20] the Officer Training Corps and the Special Reserve.

In all these reforms Haldane worked closely at the War Office with Major-General Haig – by coincidence both men had been born in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh. J.A.Spender later wrote of how Haldane got the best work out of an able but verbally incoherent soldier (thought to refer to Haig) by not scoring verbal points off him as many politicians would have done.[4]

Usually critical, Rosebery remarked on Haldane's interest in philosophy declaring "I have read his Secret Memorandum, and that was enough." In 1907 and 1908, Haldane passed far-reaching reforms to Army management. He was accredited as an efficient bureaucratic leader, notably founding the Territorial Army. The Force would play a vital part in the Great War effort.

Haldane was also instrumental in the creation the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1909, which provided the fledgling aircraft industry in the United Kingdom with a sound body of science on which to base the development of aircraft for the next seventy years (it was disbanded in 1979).

In 1915 Asquith ranked his Cabinet, putting Haldane only sixth amongst the inner cabinet members.[24] He also inveigled Kitchener and Haldane to sign the King's Pledge – which Churchill and Asquith himself completely ignored. Haldane resented the abstinence, and six weeks later resigned, going to the front to meet his old friend General Haig, and cousin General Aylmer Haldane. On 30 July Haig urged along the line a frontal assault, rather than the piercing move strategy to break the line, at first proposed by French. By December, French had joined Haldane in retirement.[25]

In March 1914, Haldane's successor at the War Office, Jack Seely resigned following the Curragh incident. Rather than appoint a successor, Asquith decided to take over responsibility for the War Office directly himself. Asquith relied heavily on Haldane as the previous War Secretary and empowered him to carry out tasks at the War Office on his behalf. As the situation in Europe worsened, Asquith kept Haldane abreast of developments with Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office. Haldane was one of the first members of the Cabinet to recognise that war with Germany was inevitable and persuaded Asquith to mobilise the Army on 3rd August. With war imminent, Asquith was happy for Haldane to continue at the War Office formally as Secretary of State for War but Haldane persuaded him to appoint Field Marshal Kitchener.[26]

However, following the outbreak of World War One Haldane was falsely accused of pro-German sympathies. The accusations were widely believed, even being echoed in a popular music hall song ("All dressed up and nowhere to go") in the revue "Mr Manhattan". He was harried in particular by Beaverbrook's Daily Express, which gave great publicity to the claim by Professor Onkel of Heidelberg that he had said "Germany was his spiritual home" – he had in fact said this about Professor Loetze's classroom at Göttingen, at a dinner party given by Mrs Humphrey Ward in April 1913 to enable him to meet some German professors during his mission.[4] He was forced to resign in 1915.

As the war progressed, Haldane moved increasingly close to the Labour Party but he was held back by his ties to the Liberal Party and to Asquith. When the Irish War of Independence broke out in 1919, Haldane was one of the first British politicians to argue that the solution lay in compromise rather than force.

It was not until the general election of 1923 that Haldane formally sided with Labour, and made several speeches on behalf of Labour candidates.[citation needed] When the Labour government was formed by Ramsay MacDonald in early 1924, Haldane was recruited to serve once again as Lord Chancellor.[27] He was also joint Leader of the Labour Peers with Lord Parmoor. Haldane was a vital member of the Cabinet as he was one of only three members who had sat in a cabinet before; the other two had sat only briefly and for junior posts.[28]

As Lord Chancellor, Haldane was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the court of last resort for the Empire. He retained the position even when he was no longer Chancellor. He sat on several cases from Canada dealing with the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments under the Canadian Constitution, particularly the interplay between sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act 1867. He gave the decision for the Judicial Committee in several of those cases, and showed a marked tendency to favour the provincial powers at the expense of the federal government. For instance, in the case of In re the Board of Commerce Act, 1919, and the Combines and Fair Prices Act,[29] he gave the decision striking down federal legislation which attempted to regulate the economy. In doing so, he gave very restrictive readings to both the "peace, order and good government" power of the federal government, as well as the federal criminal law power. Similarly, in Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider,[30] Lord Haldane struck down a federal statute attempting to regulate industrial disputes, holding that it was not within federal authority under either the peace, order and good government power, nor the federal trade and commerce power. He went so far as to suggest that the trade and commerce power was simply an ancillary federal power, which could not authorise legislation in its own right. The effect of some of these decisions have subsequently been modified by later decisions of the Judicial Committee and the Supreme Court of Canada, but they have had the long-term effect of recognising substantial provincial powers. Haldane's approach to the division of powers was heavily criticised by some academics and lawyers in Canada, such as F.R. Scott[31] and Chief Justice Bora Laskin, as unduly favouring the provinces over the federal government and depriving it of the powers needed to deal with modern economic issues. More recently, one major study has characterised him as "the wicked stepfather" of the Canadian Constitution.[32]

In 1895 Haldane helped the Webbs found the London School of Economics. A fundamental believer in the power of improving education, he prepared the London University Act 1898. The philosophy of 'national efficiency' was central feature of the Hegelian complex, and the ideas of Schopenauer, he had learnt on the continent, that accentuated freedom and decentralisation from an historicist's perspective.[33] His moral centrism sought to unify The New Liberalism, as he published it in Contemporary Review.[34] From a pan-European perspective he analysed the German character and economic advances towards militarism. He was largely responsible for the cross-party support for Balfour's Education Act 1902. He told Rosebery "a sense of nation is working towards ...a great centre party."[35] He was also involved in the founding of Imperial College in 1907 and in his honour the University contains the Haldane Recreational Library.

Haldane was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb. He wrote a biography of Adam Smith, extollng the virtues of free trade. Unlike Chamberlain, he thought there was no strong connection between fiscal and imperial unity. He opposed any attempt to protection of British trade.[36]

Haldane co-translated the first English edition of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, published between 1883 and 1886. He wrote several philosophical works, the best known of which is The Reign of Relativity (1921), which dealt with the philosophical implications of the theory of relativity. Haldane published "The Pathway to Reality", based on the Gifford Lectures which he had delivered at the University of St Andrews.[37] Some of his public addresses have also been published, including The future of democracy (1918).

Haig remarked "The latter is a large, fat man" was Haig's initial impression of dignified demeanour. But, added Haig, "One seems to like the man at once." Having worked on the Army Regulations of 1909 Haig applauded, a most clear headed and practical man – very ready to listen and weigh carefully all that is said to himOsbert Sitwell described him as "entering a room with the air of a whole procession". Leo Amery said he looked like "the old-fashioned family butler".[4] Another Imperialist, Winston Churchill also respected, Haldane, although both from very different backgrounds. On becoming First Lord of the Admiralty, Asquith advised he seek Haldane's advice on the basis of his War Office reforms at a meeting at Archerfield, North Berwick.[38] From 1907 to 1908 he was president of the Aristotelian Society.

Haldane remained a lifelong bachelor after his fiancée, Miss Valentine Ferguson, broke off their engagement. He died suddenly of heart disease at his home in Auchterarder, Scotland, on 19 August 1928, aged 72.[39] The viscountcy became extinct on his death.

Lord Birkenhead, the Conservative politician, praised Haldane in November 1923 as an exception to the idealism in Britain before the Great War:

In the welter of sentimentality, amid which Great Britain might easily have mouldered into ruin, my valued colleague, Lord Haldane, presented a figure alike interesting, individual, and arresting. In speech fluent and even infinite he yielded to no living idealist in the easy coinage of sentimental phraseology. Here, indeed, he was a match for those who distributed the chloroform of Berlin. Do we not remember, for instance, that Germany was his spiritual home? But he none the less prepared himself, and the Empire, to talk when the time came with his spiritual friends in language not in the least spiritual. He devised the Territorial Army, which was capable of becoming the easy nucleus of national conscription, and which unquestionably ought to have been used for that purpose at the outbreak of war. He created the Imperial General Staff. He founded the Officers' Training Corps.[40]

On Haldane’s death The Times described him as “one of the most powerful, subtle and encyclopaedic intellects ever devoted to the public service of his country”.[4]

The military historian Correlli Barnett claimed Haldane had "all-round personal talents far exceeding those of his predecessors" as Secretary of State for War and was "a man of first-class intellect and wide education".[41] Walter Reid believed Haldane to be the greatest of the Secretary for War.